Storytelling and Truth Theme Analysis

In Catching Teller Crow, storytelling is not deception. Rather, it is a way of telling the truth non-literally when the literal truth is too traumatic for the storyteller to describe or too blunt for the listener to accept. The novel deals with two men, rich heir Alexander Sholt and local police chief Derek Bell, kidnapping, abusing, and murdering girls in a small Australian town. Their final victim, Isobel Catching, escapes and burns down the “children’s home” from which Alexander and Derek have been harvesting victims, with help from the ghost of the first victim, Sarah Blue/Crow; on the same night, Crow kills Alexander. Afterward, Crow spots the ghost of 15-year-old Beth Teller following her father, detective Michael Teller, to the scene of Alexander’s murder, and tells Catching about it.

In an attempt to help Beth move on, Catching poses as a witness to the fire and narrates the story of her kidnapping, abuse, and escape to Beth and Michael as a kind of fantastical allegory: the children’s home staff who brought Alexander and Derek victims, Director Cavanagh and Nurse Flint, become faceless, batlike creatures called Fetchers, Alexander and Derek become spindly white monsters called Feeds, and the abuse that Alexander and Derek visited upon their victims before killing them—which is strongly implied to be sexual in nature—becomes “eating the colors” out of their victims until they turn entirely gray. Catching wants “to be heard,” but she finds her story, even in allegorical form, very difficult to narrate, which suggests that she allegorizes the events she suffered to communicate the truth non-literally, indirectly enough that the narration won’t retraumatize her. Similarly, Catching wants to help Beth move on from the physical world, where she no longer belongs—but Beth responds badly to Catching’s bluntly stated advice, whereas Catching’s fantastical story of trauma and resilience eventually convinces Beth that she needs to leave her grieving father behind and move on for both their sakes. Thus, the novel suggests that stories can be essentially “true” even when their details are invented—and that sometimes, telling the truth through invented details is healthier and more effective than simply stating facts.